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Dr. Jim Garlow is a lifelong pastor who most recently served in San Diego, California, and now leads Well Versed, a ministry dedicated to bringing biblical
13.6K followers
In this video 0:00 Government's Role in National Defense2:00 Principles of Just War4:01 Hope Beyond War: Messiah's PeaceComments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
Government's Role in National Defense 0:00 And we're back in chapter 23 and well versed on national defense and war.0:07 Probably 1 of the most difficult things to understand about culture and society is the issue of war itself. What's more horrific than the destructive force of war, which kills people,0:18 destroys things? And we look at war going on around the globe. We've never had a season there wasn't war. And we say, oh my goodness, does it have to be that way? Does the scripture speak any to0:30 the issue of national defense and and war? First of all, we establish this basic principle, the purpose of government that God ordained. The purpose of government is to restrain evil.0:42 The purpose of government is to protect the citizenry. Unfortunately, when you consider that fact, the purpose being, of course, the issue of protection of the citizenry and restraining those0:54 of evil, that means that necessitates sometimes, tragically, war. Now, why do we have war? Well, the short answer is because of the rejection of the Prince of1:06 Peace. If if there's gonna come a messianic era where war will be over. If the messiah was fully accepted, a war would be no more. But in the1:18 meantime, we have war. Augustine, then, from the 3 hundreds, was 1 of those who developed kind of the theory or the theology of war. What is a just war? Now to say1:30 there's a just war, biblically speaking, there must be some unjustifiable wars. So to have a just war, what do we have? Well, we'll only mention just a few of the things. But for for 1 thing, war should be1:42
1:54 combatants. In other words, try to hold civilian casualties to as low as possible. I've made quite a number of trips to Israel.
Principles of Just War
2:02 I've
2:02 been there 10, 11 times. My wife has been there, well, between almost 60 times. And 1 of the top trips I made over was intentionally during the war. We met with a number of military
2:14 personnel, and they would sometimes go out on their airplanes, you know, their planes or jets ready to bomb. And and when they were in fighting in Gaza, and they would even though they had dropped leaflets before, they
2:26 actually literally had called on cell phones saying, vacate this area. We're identifying some ordinance, some munitions. We're gonna be bombing that area. They would literally be they would
2:38 come back not having dropped the bombs at all. And 1 pilot 1 Israel pilot was asked, how do you feel about that? All those trips you made out, you identified the target, but you saw it would harm some of the civilians in
2:49 in Gaza. And he said, I feel very good about my trip out and back, not bombing not dropping any bombs because I know it would have killed some innocent civilians. Now sometimes obviously, still
3:01 that happens. But, in the history of warfare, there's probably never been a country, like Israel that's worked so hard to make sure that noncombatants are not killed. And then the force needs to be
3:13 proportionate proportionate to what dealing with. There's the there there the possibility you could use unnecessary excessive force and cause undue address to the situation.
3:25 Those are some of the principles that that guide us in this phenomenon of war. National defense is necessary. The the the the good news is someday it's going to end. We need to remind ourselves
3:37 again, what I said a moment ago, that the reason we have war is the repudiation of of the the king of kings, the the 1 who is the prince of peace who's coming. But someday someday,
3:49 the Messiah will return and war will be no more. And that great scripture that the that the swords are gonna be refined and and pounded into plow shares and become productive.
Hope Beyond War: Messiah's Peace
4:01 That day will someday come. In the meantime, we look and see what the Bible has to say about national defense and the reality of war.
4:15 War. Yeah. What is a goofball?
4:21 Absolutely nothing.
4:24 Okay, guy guys. Let's get serious. Let's look at some scriptures.
4:28 Well, there's always been wars. Ecclesiastes 3 8 says, a time to love, a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace. Mhmm. Matthew 24 6 says,
4:39 you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. There will always be wars until the Messiah returns.
4:46 Absolutely. And as a wife and someday a mother, I cannot imagine sending 1 of my own kids off to war. And even worse, I couldn't imagine if war came to my door. War is a terrible, terrible
4:58 thing. And I can't even comprehend that some countries are at war today.
5:03 Exactly. War is absolutely tragic. And however, as a last resort sometimes war is justifiable. And war is really the result of a world rejecting Jesus,
5:15 the Prince of Peace.
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